Aside from some domestic chores and then bumming, a friend and I went to S&R on Sunday to check out what’s new/what’s on sale this week. We bought a Palmolive dishwashing liquid since buy 1, take 1 so lalabas na Php 135 na lang for an almost 800 ml bottle. Pwede na.

We went to Shang after to window shop and kill time. Mga walang magawa hahaha.

I attended the very last mass na kasi late akong nagising nung morning hehehe. Kahit yung last morning mass ng 11:15 AM, di ko na maaabutan. Ganon ka-late hihi. And yesterday was the last Sunday of the liturgical year. Next week, Advent na. Di nga? Ganon kabilis? My takeaway from the mass: WWJD – What would Jesus do? Every time daw we have problems or decisions, we can always ask WWJD? Tumpak naman.

Last Friday pala, the Uber surge was so high so I decided to drop by my branch of account to pick up some EIP COPs. Akalain mong 3 ang nakuha ko for my niece and 2 lang sa akin? Hehehe. But I’m happy that she is religiously allocating for her investment accounts. At sana hindi sya pumalya talaga kasi sayang naman ang opportunity to start investing while she’s young.

I’ve shared about BDO’s seminar previously. Lucky that a friend and I got seats so off we went last Saturday to attend.

The speaker was Sir Efren Ll. Cruz, a registered financial planner, personal finance coach, and a bestselling author. I have read his book entitled “Pwede Na! The Complete Pinoy Guide to Personal Finance”. I loved his book because it was very easy to read and understand so somehow, his name was kept somewhere in my memory. I have also heard of him from a colleague when she shared that she and her husband availed of his service as a financial planner. My friend’s friend and his husband also got him as their financial planner.

The seminar’s title was “How to Break The Rules of Thumb in Personal Finance”. Here are some of the things I was able to take note of.

100 minus age Rule

According to this rule, the difference when you subtract your age from 100 should be the percentage of your portfolio that is invested in the stock market. However, it is still case to case. For people who just started saving for their retirement few years before they retire, they should be more aggressive in their investments.

Diversification Rule

As a rule of thumb, we must diversify but we also need to ensure that we don’t over-diversify because in doing so, we may lose our chances of higher gains. According to Sir Efren, stock performance is 92% based on the market performance, 5% by the fund manager, 2% timing and 1% sheer luck.

Buy Low, Sell High

This is a little bit tricky because we only know when it is the lowest price or the highest price after the fact. The brain needs something to compare it to before it can conclude that it’s the lowest or the highest.

His recommendation is to set a target and look for stocks that can return your target then sell when your target is met. Looking for stocks entails a lot of studying and analysis, he says.

20:20 Retirement Rule

The rule states that if you will retire for 20 years, you should start preparing for your retirement 20 years prior your target retirement age.

On the contrary, we should start planning for our retirement as early as we can so that we can take advantage of time and also the years that we don’t have much responsibilities and bills to pay yet. At 20 years prior target retirement age, you may already have started a family so there are more expenses to pay and saving for retirement may become the least priority. So it’s better to start as early as you can.

Buy Your Own Home Instead of Renting

While there are more affordable properties in the market now, you should really assess first if you are ready to transition to home ownership. You should consider all additional costs that it entails. If you think you are ready, then go ahead. Otherwise, there is nothing wrong with renting while you are saving up for the budget needed for home ownership.

After presenting the above rules, his next question was, “Are you all S.E.T?” where SET was used as an acronym for:

S – size of fundE – expertise in investingT – time available in investing

For us to be successful direct investors, we need to have a sizable fund, we need to be experts in investing and to be an experts, it is a full time job, and we should have the time to learn the ropes, do a lot of research, and come up with our own investing strategies.

However, most of us are not really S.E.T. So his recommendation was to hire professionals to do the investing for us. In doing so, we take advantage of the skills of the fund managers for a minimal fee. If we go this route, we can choose from Mutual Funds (MFs, offered by Mutual Fund companies), Unit Investment Trust Funds (UITFs, offered by the Trust arm of banks), or VULs (offered by insurance companies). I won’t elaborate on each of the options as there are a lot of resources available online for the differences of the 3 and which companies offer what.

His parting lines were:

Focus on the life events you want to achieve, not the money.

Strongest currency is FAITH.

A speaker from BDO was next and he presented the available UITF options that their bank offers.

Personal note:
Others may or may not agree and that’s fine. After all, personal finance is still really just that…PERSONAL. As for me, I am thankful for opportunities such as this. Nothing beats learning for free. With J.Co donuts and coffee for snacks pa. San ka pa. Thanks, BDO! 🙂

BDO is offering a financial wellness seminar for free this Saturday! Since it’s free, and a friend and I are suckers for free seminars, we registered the other night. We haven’t received the confirmation email yet, but still crossing our fingers.

You may check this page for more details and to register if you’re interested.

Update (03.11.2016): My friend and I received an email confirmation from BDO yesterday. We’re in. Yay!

I had challenges working with a new colleague that it was a real test of my patience but I still tried to be patient given the circumstances. Lesson have been learned and I can pat my back for surpassing the test on patience. It was a test because I am not the most patient person there is hehehe. I am thankful for her presence because she’s really teaching me to be patient and we are still moving forward with tasks anyway so no sweat.

I got so drained last Wednesday that I requested for work from home. I just honestly told my boss that I need some peace and quiet after the crazy Wednesday. I am again thankful that she granted my request.

We completed our second session on strategic planning and the team has a good and doable plan. I’m excited to introduce change in one of our documentations. That should speed up our work while ensuring that it is still understandable to both our clients and our developers. I’ll pilot test it in my current project. Hopefully, the other boss wouldn’t be too surprised of the new format hehehe. I’ll convince him that change is good. Haha!

Living Quarters

Finally got a confirmation from SkyCable that my request for deactivation was filed. More details of how it finally happened here. Earliest disconnection will be March 12. I’m patiently waiting. I just want to say bye bye to one bill, regardless of the small amount hehehe.

I also got my dormant Metrobank account reactivated. I just need to request for reactiviation of my online account though. I’ll do that next week.

And finally, I was able to get my niece’s first Confirmation of Participation for her BDO EIP. More details here. So happy and excited for her and hope she stays focused on her savings.

Weekend

I planned on staying at home to do the laundry and update my blog’s layout. So that’s what I did. I spent the whole Saturday afternoon onwards searching for templates with minimalist theme. Unfortunately, I was not successful. I’ve downloaded everything that I liked and tried it all but not even one perfectly suited my current layout without me having to tweak it. So, I just resorted to what’s available in Blogger for now. I’ll try again some other time. Anyone who knows where I can get free templates other than what’s on Blogger?

On Sunday, first on the agenda was to attend mass. Hay. Another test of faith and of being good while inside the church. I got annoyed because someone had the guts to take a selfie while the mass was ONGOING. While all of us already stood up, she was still sitting there for her selfie. It was so annoying but I just tried to focus on the mass itself (which was hard by the way, because she was in front of me hehe). And ironically, the gospel was the Prodigal Son, so that’s about forgiveness and all. But anyway, moving on…

I went to Shang for some peaceful mall and lunch time before going to Megamall for my weekly grocery. Went home right after and cooked my weekly lunch. I work mid shift so to save money, I must ensure that I eat lunch at home so that I’ll only spend for one meal outside.

Just finished watching The Intern. Good movie on girl power. I liked the ending.

That’s about it. Getting excited for the coming weekends because I have some things planned. And it’s my and the BF’s birthday month. I still can’t believe that we share the same month and his comes a day after mine. Ha!

I hope you all had a great week. Cheers to another great week ahead. Goodnight for now. Trying to sleep early so that I can start training myself to become an early riser.

I was able to get my OFW niece’s confirmation of participation from BDO last Thursday. I’ve shared in one of my posts before that I encouraged her to set up an investment account before leaving for her place of employment, so that she has a facility to put in her savings.

I’m glad that she listened to my advice and realized the importance of starting early. I am happy that she is still committed to her savings plan for her daughter’s college fund. I’m thankful with the technology because she is just a PM away when I want to randomly check on her savings goals. I pray that she will be blessed with a steady source of income so that she can achieve her goals for her family.

On a different note, I have not seen Ms. Joan during my 2 previous visits at the bank. Ms. Joan was the one who helped us open an account for my niece last year. I wonder if she resigned. Good thing that the teller who attended to me last Thursday maybe still remembers me because when I requested for my niece’s COP, she did not ask for my ID anymore and she knew which family name to look for. Thank you, Ms. Teller. Note to self – get the teller’s name on my next visit.

How about you? Do you have family members abroad? Any tips for OFWs so that their hard earned money won’t go to waste?